The next question I have is, are fans going directly to the bands website or reverbnation, etc? All the artists I spoke to dislike the timeline. Are fans going to an artists facebook page less and less now?

We've actually heard both positive and negative reactions to Timeline from Artists. 

Traffic to the ReverbNation.com website is up ~50% since February 29th (the day Timeline was introduced). 

Bc we all panicked! The real Q is wether that traffic is made up of artists tweaking there pages or fans/consumers coming over to listen and research.

The growth is predominantly coming from fan traffic.

What about now? How are the stats looking for fans/artists?? I bet you don't even answer now that scary graphs and articles aren't dedicated to your potential customers plummeting.

Time to change your strategy ...

R.I.P. BandPage?

I see it is useful to read your informations , I am interested sharing , thanks bonsai

The sad thing is I think FanFX handled the transition the best out of the 3.  Their platform for creating "tabs" is easy to use and makes great use of all the new real estate timeline provides.  

I'm willing to bet most of this traffic comes from facebook buttons on websites and depended on the "default tab" feature that is no longer.  Once all the users of these applications replace the old link with the new "tab" link the traffic will be restored.

Ho-ly Shit, look at those numbers.

Time(line)....not on FB's side.....#freedomofchoice #essential

Well, the Facebook Timeline has it flaws but its undeniable that it can be beneficial for a lot of brands/businesses who properly set-up their Timeline. It's just too bad for the Facebook artist app who dropped some major numbers. There's nothing that can be done but to adapt to the changes and improve the existing strategy.

For the casual Facebook users, Timeline can make your profiles look pretty cool. For awesome cover photos, check this out: http://coversfortimeline.com/

The other thing is artist posts are no longer showing up on fan timelines.  Not sure why fb is killing this but they are making themselves obsolete. Now it's all twitter & instagram which fb just bought

All the more reason that all artists need to invest in their own .com domain. It's the only site that you will ever have 100% control over. It doesn't have to be anything more than a great looking landing page with links to social networks, music, merch, tour dates, etc. 

Your social networks are tools that should be used to direct traffic to your own website. Do yourself a favor and set yourself apart from all the artists who use their Facebook / Myspace / etc as their "official" site.

For those of you that already have your own site, you're one step ahead of the competition.

http://decibelpromo.com

I totally agree. I'm always surprised (not in a good way) when an artist doesn't have a dedicated site. Even when they have their own domain it can be misleading--I've seen plenty that direct to their Facebook Page. 

No doubt that this change is putting near-term pressure on all apps as it puts them a click behind the Timeline. For those musicians concerned about the transition and who want to continue to use the BandPage as their landing page they can use their BandPage direct link, you can find more info about this on our blog: http://bandpage.wordpress.com/

This marks the fourth major evolution of BandPage on Facebook (#1 was launch, #2 was FBML to iFrame, #3 was tabs on top to side, #4 is timeline). We've made these transitions in the past and have been stronger each time and plan to do the same this time. The internet and social networks are in constant change and with our incredible engineering and product teams we will continue to evolve and leverage these new capabilities. 

Even though it's a change, there are many aspects to Timeline that provide a new opportunity, like BandPage integration into Open Graph.  This brings a more engaging, dynamic and viral experience to the fans. Actions are published directly to Timeline and the ticker to create more buzz and traffic back to an artist BandPage. We launched this a month ago and Facebook featured BandPage as one of the companies innovating with the change.  Over the coming months we'll continue to expose and leverage these.

Our mission as a company is to deliver a great platform and user experience for musicians to connect with their fans, and vice versa. BandPage on Facebook was our first step into the market and we're really excited about step two and three. We have great investors who know that BandPage has a clear focus, they invested in where we've been but more so in where we're headed over the next few years.  We look forward to sharing those innovations. I feel lucky to work with such an amazing team and Board that really care about the musician and fan and focus on always providing real solutions through innovative technology.  I'm here at the office working on it with my team so I'm gonna get back to it,

Cheers,

J

J - 

Kudos to you for posting/communicating what you are doing.

Does FB work with you during the transformation, i.e., the timeline?

My experience with Timeline is, on first impression, fair. However, there are a lot of folks in the industry that are not happy, hence, not visiting, providing status for their friends and fans. It would be interesting to see what FB's engagement numbers pre and post timeline.  IMO, for artists in our industry the intuitiveness made it simple to update pre-timeline.  I have not heard from one that is enthused, and many that are PO'd.  At least, this should have been an opt-in.

Besides all this, my unscientific poll reveals that an overwhelming majority are still not using Google+.  The bigger names have a presence that their labels, management handle.  Anyone else have a different experience.

J - I will let the folks know about BandPage... communication is a good thing.

You should not be comparing the PEAK DAU to April 10th DAU... That's disingenious and offers the least valid comparison between when the change occurred, and today.

Most of these percentages in drop would be 10-20% less than your calculation if you weren't trying to sensationalize this to the hilt.

That said, as a musician, this changes nothing for me and the value of these apps (I use FanRx and Reverb depending on what I'm doing) is exactly the same. I just have to send people to the apps when I want to, and make sure that my wall (Timeline) reflects what I want users to see at any given point in time, since that is indeed the new 'default landing tab' so-to-speak.

'Destroyed' is a bit strong, interesting stats though.

Wowzah, back to the drawing board.

You see this? Pretty staggering numbers.

Shock!  Timeline on artist pages has killed RootMusic et al.

You see this? Pretty staggering numbers.

Timeline has killed my page too.

Donde esta Godzilla when you need him?!

Here's a surprise: Facebook's Timeline is killing band apps.

Ca chute, ça chute...

Yet another reason to set up a band profile on Musicpage.

They look better, give more info on your band, are free to make and Muicpage doesnt dick around with changes that stop people from visiting your profile.

check it: http://www.musicpage.com/theoutervibe

Correction, they infact do NOT look great.  Terrible UI.

Solution: Create content. Talk TO your fans rather than broadcasting AT them.

This is a perfect opportunity for artists to take the next step. Ho many will? Sadly, few.

Don't build your business on someone else's platform.

ooopps... warning to music celebrities.

pretty bleak.

Obviously removing the default landing tab meant a massive drop in numbers. The question is, are people still coming to the page? Are people still seeing the artist's profile? How many of those 100% simply went to the wall when getting to an artist's page?

The people who now go to the app page are people who are really interested in what you have to say. Isn't that what's important?

AviK

Get your whole website on your Facebook page with MyWebees!

http://bit.ly/GRK50g 

Hey BandPage -- Love the app and miss it--hasn't loaded for me since Timeline switch. OS X 10.7/Chrome.

Sorry to hear that, Matt! Just got in touch with you via Twitter. Happy to look into this for you :)

-Sam

@BandPage

You absolutely must change your Facebook strategy now.

Some of these people paid thousands of dollars for custom Facebook pages. Facebook wiped them out, in the blink of an eye.

A very dramatic post this is. The facebook timline just forces you to think about how to present your apps better.

many artists need to rethink their strategy...